I have been following the Noitamina timeslot ever since 2005. At this point, I’ve watched and completed every single anime to appear in the timeslot, save for one, so yes: I do not say this easily: Guilty Crown has been the worst Noitanima series I have ever seen.

This is a combination of a hype that it miserably failed to live up to, plain bad storytelling and a ton of wasted potential. Here we finally had another Noitamina series that was allowed to go on for two cours with 22 episodes. In a timeslot where the biggest problem is being too short this really is an amazing chance, and even more of a bummer to see it trashed like this. This show is stupid, badly told, boring, inconsequential, and most important of all: it’s empty.

Seriously, this series does not know how to tell a story. This show has the idea that as long as it pulls enough plot twists, it’ll automatically get good. It wants this so badly, that it starts pulling these twists right out of its ass. Especially the second half of the series just keeps pulling the most convenient deus ex machina right from out of bloody nowhere. “Oh, we need this power to keep going, oh wait, that character conveniently had that power, even though it was never mentioned or hinted at before!” – and that’s just one of the least insulting ones.

Okay, so the plot is bad. On its own that’s not automatically a failure if the show has enough to make up for it. The thing is however: this show doesn’t. It looks pretty and all, but I can’t really recommend it for anything. In fact, the plot isn’t even the worst part of this show. No, that honour belongs to the cast of characters.

Shu has got to be the worst main character that I’ve seen in a long while. I mean, you really have to try to be as bad as him. This is the kind of guy of which the creators never really decided what personality they should get him. The result is that he completely changes character with every passing episode with no explanation behind it whatsoever. Whatever is the most convenient for the plot, he acts like that. The result is an incredibly annoying, inconsistent and bafflingly stupid character.

And the thing is: the entire show revolves around this loser. Every character is tailor-made to revolve around him, even though we’re never given a reason to actually like him. Everyone is forced into this role to help him tell his story… whatever the hell that may be. The lead female… is completely useless for the entire length of the show. I know that we often joke with romantic interests being pointless, but this girl is even worse. She literally does nothing other than talk here and there and go emo once in a while. The rest of the side-cast also isn’t better of, as they fit in with whatever role the male lead seems to want to play at the moment, acting as cannon fodder for him. The antagonists are just a bunch of screaming stereotypical evil guys who like to kill people because… well… because.

It’s very likely that this show had the biggest budget of the past half year. And yet, I wouldn’t rank the animation as the best or most interesting here. The show has great inbetween animation, but it hardly ever does anything interesting with its eye candy or direction. I found myself enjoying the visuals of Nisemonogatari, Black Rock Shooter, Milky Holmes, Last Exile and Chihayafuru much more, because they actually tried to bring their characters to life. Guilty Crown doesn’t even attempt to do that.

Overall, the first half of Guilty Crown is mind-numbingly boring. Hardly anything really seems to happen in it at all. This completely changes in the second half when it pulls the most bafflingly convenient plot twists that would make Code Geass cringe. And you know what? It’s still boring. It’s been a while since a show that was this hyped, that was this ambitious, fell so flat on its face as here. I read in an interview once that the creators want to make the male lead into the new Shinji Ikari of Evangelion. And indeed, parts of this show scream “Evangelion wannabe”. These guys however had no bloody clue what made that show good.

Storytelling:

6/10 – Mind-numbingly stupid, boring and empty. Has no idea how to tell a good story and just pulls random twists whatever is the most convenient.

Characters:

5/10 – I really have nothing positive to say about these guys whatsoever. There was no character whatsoever who I liked. Everyone revolves way too much around the male lead. Everyone here is exceptionally bad.

Production-Values:

8/10 – Okay, the series does have pretty graphics, but with the budget it has it could have done so much more.

Setting:

6/10 – Who on earth green-lighted this? The setting behind this feels like no thought was put into making it actually work. Again, it centers way too much to the male lead, instead of the other way around.

I’d give it a 72/100 , but i agree with almost everything you said in the review.

Shu is certainly a bad main character, but he is nowhere near as bad as your typical harem lead , although i have a feeling you don’t watch many harems. If you don’t watch harems then yea he is one of the worst main characters. I think what makes it worse is that most of the time terrible main characters tend to come from 12-13 episode generic series. In a 20+ episode production ig/noitamina series there really isn’t an excuse for how bad Shu is.

Fractale looked nice. I think it had a better world setting than GC, but it didn’t have anywhere near the same budget per episode.

Plus Fractale had 1 extremely good episode that came early on , and a bunch of mediocre to bad episodes.H3ll Fractale even had filler. Filler in a series that couldn’t even produce a coherent well executed story. Makes a lot of sense.

I agree on Fractale, largely based on what a waste of potential that whole show was and that I really didn’t like the male lead and that info dump of a (near) ending.
I gave Guilty crown 14 episodes and then tapped out feeling that it was going nowhere, was wholly unoriginal ,made little sense, was contrived and boring in its plot and main character.
Visually however it was great and I enjoyed the action scenes but it was all style and no substance.

Well, speak for yourself. I had no preconceptions whatsoever going into either Fractale of GC – haven’t even heard of them until watching the first episode. Just because someone despised an anime, it doesn’t follow that she was biased against it from the start.

I’d give a 9.5 on visuals 9.0 on music a 5 on characters because other than Shu i found most tolerable and a 4.0-5.0 on story simply because it wasn’t that bad other than the numerous parts that didn’t make sense , or weren’t explained. Still most anime nowadays have deus exes all over the place and unexplained plot holes. Most animes however don’t have the visuals or music this has.

I actually usually agree with psgels rating system , but every now and then i see a head scratcher like GC. I feel like he got sucked in to the pre release hype , and the hype because it had Production IG and noitamina behind it.

Without going into too much detail, Guilty Crown definitely suffered because of Shu’s general weakness and Inori’s almost complete passivity. This could have been adequately compensated if they changed over time or if Gai and the other characters were significantly better, but they didn’t really have the opportunity to fully develop either. It’s disappointing and perhaps 22 episodes just wasn’t enough, but we’ll never know if there was any other alternative.

Admittedly, Shu eventually became more of a man, in a certain sense, but not in a particularly exciting nor interesting way. It was all rather typical and predictable. I didn’t care for the incest subtext found throughout the plot either, which was taken to the extreme with the whole Mana/Inori debacle.

In the ending, Guilty Crown was simply too boring and a real slog to sit through. Even if I don’t really agree with psgels on Code Geass, the fact is that other show also had some writing and characterization issues but it still benefited from being a longer series and thus having more of a preexisting base before the twists came in. Guilty Crown feels like an incomplete and inconsistent attempt to do something similar, but with even worse results.

On the Shu topic, i don’t know if it was just me, but i disliked him a lot because of a single event. When the girl who liked him died and he actually became badass for a short while. It gave me hope that i never should of had. If i didn’t have that hope, i would of just chalked Shu up as a normal male generic lead that we see so much these days, and wouldn’t of been so mad.

Also strongly agree on the unneeded incest subtext. I also strongly agree that this series would of highly likely been more passable if it got the episodes that Code Geass did. I really have no clue what they were thinking. Maybe it would of also been better off if they didn’t air this until the spring season. About 30% of the way in i felt like they were making stuff up on the spot and that is inexcusable to me when a budget like this is involved.

Armpit, to me Shu(Or the more suitable name “Shoe”) was the downfall of guilty crown. The biggest flaw. Psgels said before that one episode of guilty crown was decent because Shu didn’t make an appearance. And when you think about it the most annoying moments of this show was when that idiot was on screen. You said harem leads are worst but I disagree with that. Harem leads are pretty much plot devices. Their only job is to stand there and be loved by girls for no reason. They don’t really inspire hatred because they are pretty much a blank stale for poor bastards to paste their personality on.
Shu on the other hand is a character that pretends to have character. He’s like a very poor actor. He joins the undertakers despite having no real reason for doing so. Doesn’t really care about Japan. Has no real goal. But despite the fact that the only thing that defines him is a power that isn’t even his everyone loves him for some reason or thinks he’s special. Even if he commits terrible mistakes he is absolved of all blame and even someone who was almost killed just because Shu didn’t want to waste air in the end has to forgive Shu because he was clearly in the wrong…. apparently. Shu can even cheat on a test and is forgiven because he was just using something that made him special. So basically everyone sees him as a Mary sue but we know better. Thus making him one of the most annoying characters I have ever seen.

If you remove him from the show guilty crown actual becomes fairly watch-able. Still stupid but not quite as bad as before.

I’m possibly alone in this but I would see Shu as being just as bad as harem lead. At least in Code Geass Lelouch had charisma and was at least we were told was clever, Shu is such an everyman that he feels like a self insert character, just as harem leads are and I think this is further supported by the moe aspects of the show. Still despite saying all that I somewhat agree with you Aidan by saying he’s like a bad actor.

And incest, for lords sake they even threw that fetish in. I’m really glad I didn’t finish this show.
Whats awful though is that I can watch bad anime and get a laugh out of it as a guilty pleasure or make fun of it/laugh at it but here I couldn’t even do that.
With Code Geass that wasn’t the case for me, I deem that every bit as ridiculous but in its case Geass became unintentionally fun because of it.

Lelouch wasn’t a bad character no matter how you slice it anyway. Sure Code Geass had problems , especially in R2, but that wasn’t because it had a bad lead.

And actually Aidan you have swayed me quite a bit with your post. It is completely true that harem leads are almost always just plot devices. And even if i do find the typical harem lead , not all of them because there are exceptions like Akuto from Ishiban Daimao, to be a tad worse than Shu , i have to factor in what you mentioned. So yes i now agree with you and have changed my opinion ! Shu is worse because he is in an anime that was supposed to be good and original , and not mindless fun like harems are supposed to be.

Like i said before though i really hate Shu.So i don’t know if i’m letting bias cloud my judgement. Those 3 episodes out of 22 that i like Shu made everything worse in the end.

Code Geass is similar to GC in how it generates hate, albeit for slightly different reasons. In regards to Code Geass it’s because it has a lot of fanboy/girls that claim its the best anime ever , or one of the best.

If i were using psgels rating system id probably give Code Geass like a 82/100.

Whats worse though is why there had to be a moe element here at all. Especially Inori. Look, yes she was attractive I’m not going to lie about that, I like moe I admit that but I’m so sick of it showing up where I feel it shouldn’t/doesn’t belong and its all the worse because Shu feels to me like a self insert character.

Honestly Inori had one good part for me in the entire anime, and that’s not good for someone who took up the 2nd most screen time. The only time i enjoyed her was the measly 3 mins when she transformed into that beastly form. Too bad her deus ex morphing like that negated the coolness of it.

Also does anyone agree with what people say about this show being misogynistic?
I apologize if anything I’m saying here comes off as too rantish but I feel should defend what I said regarding the moe elements of GC, I said that they shouldn’t belong there in a mech show, to me its the same and equally annoying as watching a moe harem comedy show that shoehorns in fake drama and angst near the end without indicating or touching on drama from the start.

At the end of the day, there’s nothing we could say that matter. Shoe and that emotionless Rei-wannabe chalked up the popularity poll I think. The DVD and Blu-ray sells like hot cakes. An anime only need smooth animation, nice art, nice music, hot babe and pretentious plot to sell those days, maybe.

I don’t know about misogynistic , but i know that as every minute passes with me thinking about GC i like it less and less. And i started out thinking it was mediocre.

I think about Code Geass which i found extremely entertaining with a bunch of flaws. It makes me think if GC at least made the characters somewhat likeable then it would of been way more entertaining. I mean Code Geass with all it flaws, still had interesting characters , and quite a few of them. Shu can’t hold a candle to Lelouch. Inori can’t compare to CC.

I really think GC should of been held back til spring so they could of went over the script again. There were some good and interesting ideas in GC, but they all fault like they were just thrown together, and made up on the fly in some instances.

The differences between Inori and CC are most apparent in the fact CC was an actual character (as was Lelouch far from what Shu was)and not and maybe I’m being too harsh here, a little sex doll more than anything else.

I think i’m going to marathon the series again in like 6 months and see what i think before i assign a rating to it. The more i think the more Aidans point sets in for me. I think about Shu and then i think about the typical male harem lead. They have almost all the same qualities with 1 big difference. Shu is a whiney b^tch who was emo for literally 75% of the series. The typical harem lead never goes emo , and if he does its for a few mins in an episode or 2.

Given what you said about re-watching it armpit, I may do just that. I try to to where possible watch something at least twice, just in case or if I find my interests change.
It may be entirely possible that in whatever time I choose to re-watch it I will have a different view on it.

While the premise is similar to Code Geass, and is as much of a train wreck as R2. The biggest difference why people like Code Geass more (still had a lot of hate too) was that the protagonist was interesting. The biggest problem with Shu in guilty crown, was he is a stereotypically weak protagonist (like a lot of harem shows), and he doesn’t try to engage in conflict or solve problems. Rather the main character is a wuss for majority of the show and tries to just run away and doesn’t seem to do much (so the writers essentially had to make the situation occur by coincidence near the protagonist to get him to react at all). Also, the idea with Guilty Crown I felt was they wanted to gradually bring Shu from a weak person to a strong leaderlike role. But this occurred way too late and had a lot of consistency problems to do so. Meanwhile Code Geass, despite its flaws, the protagonist Lelouch was interesting. Unlike other heroes, he was ambitious and wanted to actually do things in the story and cause trouble. Plus, having the protagonist willing to kick puppies to reach his goal is always refreshing to the stereotypical hero crap we see all the time (not to say that plot didn’t have any flaws, it jumped around a lot too in R2).

Personally I liked some parts of this show, and I didn’t think that Shu was a bad character. For one he seemed to react in a believable way in many situations. He doesn’t have the moments of predicting the most outlandish things and seeing the future like others in this genre(looking at you, Lelouch).

This show definitely wasn’t without flaws though, like how there were simply a couple of characters that were just there but never used by the plot in a meaningful way. Or the technobabble that is the mark of poor writing. Though the final cardinal sin this show did was bringing back Gai. I personally was glad to see that annoyance die halfway through the show. He was just not very interesting and bringing him back to life after he was killed not only cheapened earlier episodes, it also made clear how little he had to do with the plot of the latter part. His goals were achieved at the halfway point. They brought him back together with his part of the plot. And this was weird. It was as if the writers decided to make this a two-parter though copying the first part but changing the details here and there.

TL;DR: So here we are now. Why did you, who loathe the show, watch it to the very end?

GC’s pacing, story and character are indeed atrocity, I admit. No need for further discussion with those issues.

But, Crap, After I saw your score with the production, you review is full of bias, 8/10?? are you kidding me?
GC’s production is fantastic. Both animation 2D/CG and music are really superb. Far better than Lase Exile Fam or the most of serie that you give 9/10 or 10/10.

As you mention about the budget, did you see its actual pay sheet or it is just your clueless guess??
If it is the latter, I’m disappointed.

Please, I know you hate this serie, but please , give it some deserved justice.

The animation is good, but it’s often focused on the most useless places. The display of emotions was just slight widening or narrowing of eyes, while more interesting movements were going on with the hair and boobs.

Another thing: maybe it’s just me, but the shots, composition and camera angle seem quite general for such a hyped up production.

I almost completely agree with your review, though the score I’d give it is much lower.

I didn’t even think it was possible for me to hate a cast of characters as much as School Days’ cast but this series almost got there. So many inconsistencies, stupid and mindbogglingly choices. They seemed to be only there to serve the plot, which wasn’t good either.

I didn’t realize School Days was hated that much on this site. It’s a show people usually love or hate , but seems almost everyone here hates it.

I can’t hate it. The main character was a huge douche , but was nothing like the typical harem lead so i can’t hate on him. Almost all the girls were tramps, but again that is so different from your typical harem where the girls are usually just d%ck teases so i can’t hate on that either. And the ending was absolutely hilarious for me even though that wasn’t what they intended i’m sure.

I like school days. The shock factor was excellent and it does make you feel for the characters even if it’s done cheap and manipulative. It’s not the best anime but you got to admit that it had balls. Plus, it’s an excellent anime to traumatise the hell out of newbies…

Absolutely agree. Now for someone who doesn’t watch many harems i can understand them giving it a horrible rating. For anyone who watches a lot of harems like i do though there is no way to hate on School Days.

On a Harem Scale i’d give School Days a 95/100 because it is so unique in comparison to other harems. In overall terms id give it probably a 75/100

Not at all. White album is a harem that tried to apply soap opera drama to it. In the end many the aspects of a harem were presented unaltered. But even then I find it hard to call that show a harem despite the fact it has the qualifications. Wasn’t it more a drama?

But to me that show was a complete bore. 26 episodes and I didn’t even get a conclusion to the romance. Normally I wouldn’t hope but this was a VN adaptation so I thought they would pick at least one of the girls endings.

Woah he doesn’t get any girl in the end? I know he has sexual relations with at least one girl in the series, and has a bunch more after him and he ends up alone?

I don’t want to sit through 26 ep’s of drama for that. It’s annoying enough when the guys in normal harems don’t choose anyone , but at least you usually get some laughs out of it, and occasionally some awesome action scenes.

With School Days it was only 12 episodes and it didn’t just rely on soap operaish drama

Based on your thoughts on school days and my comments on it in the shoutbox I reckon you’d like white album armpit.
And I agree with you armpit, even though I’m happy to accept a generic harem as enjoyable to me, school days still went that extra mile and offered something different.
Didn’t feel as if it was playing it as safe or as self conscious as most post 80s/90s harems.

Aidan, I don’t think the guy in white album really deserved a girlfriend to be perfectly honest with you.
Also I’m sorry if this sounds rude but can we move this over to the chat box instead, this is a review about guilty crown not the harem genre and school days.

I agree but seeing as we were not going to get a “Nice boat” end I think it would have been more satisfactory to see him learn the error of his ways and actually clean up his act. Seeing him break up with the girls he didn’t want and apologise truthfully would have been a far more suitable end. But what happens in the in end? He’s screws a bunch of girls, causes them great misery and gets away with Scott free. Not to mention he learns absolutely nothing from it and the girls don’t even hate him. At least school days got the moral right. You screw around, it will come back and kill you.

I guess that the nice boat stuff and the moral of the story isn’t really required when you watching an anime (or,at least for me), I enjoyed White Album for its unexpected twists, the characters emotions (I’d applause the VAs for doing a really good job at it,i.e. Nana Mizuki),and its character development.

The dramas in WA is at much higher complexity,and therefore quality than in SD.Really, when watching SD, you can just watch the 1st episode and skip to 12th without miss anything. In WA,however, if you do that.. you’ll scratching your head.

I haven’t seen WA so i can’t be sure, but still i don’t think you can even compare the drama between 2 shows.. From the comments i’ve seen it seems like WA would be considered drama/harem. I would classify SD as psychological/harem.

Magi, in the end White album amounted to nothing. Nice boat or a moral isn’t exactly necessary…but all stories need a point. So why care about the drama or twists of white album when it doesn’t even result in anything?

Yea Makoto got what he deserved.He knew that he was actually ruining peoples lives and didn’t care. So many of the people i’ve talked to that hate School Days almost always have 1 thing in common. The mention how much they hate the main lead. And i have seen some people going deep into it explaining how mad they got.I’ve seen this in forums and in comments on streaming vids.

I always want to ask these people a couple things, but never do because i know it will just start a fight that isn’t rational. If you hate the guy that much then didn’t they do a good job? How can you say you hate the series because of a bad character , yet not acknowledge that you are supposed to not like him?

And to top it all off he got what he had coming in the end. It isn’t like he got away with it.

As I said I think Touya from white album didn’t deserve to be with anyone. However he did acknowledge he was replacing his girlfriend in the end. I also think white album played it more realistically than school days even in its ending.
And while I can curse Touya for sleeping around and kissing other girls, having more time for other women I can still turn it around and see it another way that his relationship with Yuki was not a healthy/feasable one.

Well, a lot of people hated the characters of school days because it was badly done. His changes in personality makes no sense at all, the girls are reduced to sex object or outright obsessed with that guy for no reason viewer could understand. I appreciated it effort to make its story apart from other harem, but still, in order to do that, characters have to be real character, not walking caricature.

His change in personality made no sense? He was basically a sociopath which means he was born that way. And to be honest i witnessed many of girls like that during my school days. Young girls are not smart when it comes to relationships (in general there are always exceptions though). Girls are more mature and smarter on average than boys of the same age , but when it comes to love/dating/romance thats a different story.

I will fully admit though about halfway in stuff started unrealistic everywhere. I doubt what he did would of drove 1 girl insane, much less two. There is no way that ending made sense. I just don’t nitpick at that stuff , especially when i know i’m watching a harem. I was entertained greatly, therefore i enjoyed it.

And for the record, i can easily see how many people would hate SD ,and i wouldn’t try to say they were wrong. I am only against the people who solely hate it because of the main character.

Have a read of my most recent comment if you can regarding Makotos personality change, I do believe he was a sociopath yes but I have to wonder if that was a result of his upbringing rather than being born that way. And then theres the influence of that bastard he was hanging out with who in a sense raped Kotonoha, who knows what kind of effect that guy had on Makoto’s mind.
Am I just over-analyzing this?

You aren’t over analyzing it.If you ever play the game you learn a lot more. Still even if he wasn’t a sociopath , that’s not out of character for a male his age. A bunch of males at that age think with their lower head and don’t care about the consequences.

But yea he was a sociopath for sure. He knew all the trauma he was causing and kept going. That is where he differs from a normal guy that age.

I would have been the opposite of Makoto in that sense of sociopathy but I agree with that alot of men that age think the way you mentioned. In a way and this is in a lesser extent to why I can say something bad about Makoto but moreso the guy from white album, is that both of them and what they did with women made me regret when I myself was unfaithful when I was a teenager.

I was getting that vibe from all the comments.Meaning that i had a feeling WA would be more realistic than SD. In SD the characters acted realistic for close to the first half of the series,then it quickly turned into ridiculousness. Although it was still entertaining. Think ill also start WA sometime during this week.

I don’t know Armpit. White album is downright boring. Even Psgels admits in his review that the first season is pretty bad. But I found the second season to be not great either.
Let me just say that you shouldn’t go into it expecting anything great. Actually, now that I think about it I can barely remember any of the story. That’s usually a bad sign.

Actually you could say that Makoto had depth as a character and even explain his behaviour, theorize at least that its partly due to his family background, I recall his parents were seperate and divorced and then look at his relationship with Kotnoha, she let him do nothing. Okay maybe I’ll get alot of hate for this but…a relationship that does not provide sex for one or either party in it is a poorly functioning one.

To be honest, I’m surprised psgels didn’t give this a 4/10; and those four points are for the animation and music, if anything. Everything else was the biggest high budget trainwreck I’ve seen yet. At least it was mildly entertaining though.

Super flop series..WHY people are bringing CG in here i don’t know..its one of the best despite the twists..i personally prefer happy endings..i would have loved the ending if inori(deserved) and shu(slightly arguable) both were alive..if i rank this anime it will get 30/100..[plot-02,charecters-03,music-10,animation-8,enjoyment-03,ending-00,production-02,script-02 ]..i have never given an anime sucg low marks..(my top rated animes* FMAB:99/100,CG AND CG2:97.5/100,D GRAY MAN:98/100)

Code gess was a great show..its one of the most highly rated shows of all time because of lelouch of course…I DON’T LIKE HAREM SHOWS TAHT MUCH..I LIKE ACTION(SHOUNEN) ANIMES..GUILTY CROWN SHOULD HAVE HAD TWO SEASONS LIKE FATE ZERO(RATED-85/100)..kick the ass of IG..how dare they make an anime go to dust..i hope some other studio like aniplex or nitroplus takes responsibility of GC,makes proper use of the story and give it a happy ending which i prefer the most.

i liked every thing about GC except the telling of the story frankly i’ve seen worse but i have also seen waaay better a couple of tweeks here and there and i think GC coulda been i fairly good manga cept you could feel the story line writers desperate struggle to figure out how they wanted the series to end everything from allowing the evil and dumb people to live who should have died to just throwing weird unexplained things into the mix wtf?

also i’ve seen both school days manga and anime i hate both but for 2 dif reasons in the manga the main characters not a doosh he’s just a normal guy trying to talk to the girl he likes while also protecting his childhood friend who becomes a little to attached to him. however in the anime they make him seem more like a no good player who takes advantage of people if feel kinda bad for him in contrast between the two because most people base his character off the anime only in which he is scum and im not even goiing to go into the games details…

shu is not the best protagonist, but definitely not the worst yet,
i really like shu being so human, weak, fragile and idiot most of the times, but in the end still found himself.. but i agree, the story telling, the script, and character development were not given much thought. it really beats me to think if inori and shu’s first meeting is part of Gai’s plan or if it’s just an accident, and if shu’s involvement in all that war thing and his connection to lost Christmas were all just a coincidence..it was nvr explained(that reminds me of bleach a bit, but atleast in bleach, ichigo’s involvement and everything was explained convincingly by aizen in the end and everything made sense!)… also in the end part, i got confused why all of a sudden things were put into place sooo randomly that it doesn’t made sense..it’s so stupid,it hurts.
the antagonists were not fully rooted also, the main reason of all their ruckus was so stupid, but if the writers did a better script on that it might become convincing..i guess? i get the feeling that the writers were trying to be obvious and abstract at the same, the only problem is that the obviousness and abstractedness they are trying to pull out in the story doesn’t match at all ( i hope you get what i’m saying)

but still i love the anime, because in the end the title GUILTY CROWN did made sense! surprisingly! and when i ponder abut it, i forgive all the mishaps of this anime, and Shu, for me,after all those stupid plot twist,ending being crippled, alone whithout inori and pathetically listening to a song reminiscing something he’ll trade his life for to see again, did represent the guilty crown pretty good.. if that sound stupid, pardon..

I agree with you there. GC for me is also a pretty good series. It only needed a better story and development and it might break the series entirely GC comes out as just really underdeveloped. IMO.
I was never annoyed with Shu. I don’t know if thats bad or if I ca just tolerate him.

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AidanAK47
@Lenlo, Nioh is something I am going to get to playing soon. Though first I will be getting through Horizon.

Lenlo
Nioh was phenomenal. Was different from Dark Souls in all the right ways.

Anonymous1335452
Your right, there have been so many great games: Zelda, Nier, Horizon, Nioh, as well as the upcoming Mario are all instant classics, and besides that there have been a bunch of other solid fun games like Sonic, Splatoon, Pyre etc.

Kaiser-Eoghan
@Mario: I just got back from Ancien and magic tablet/napping princess/hirune hime/whatever its title. In brief, the fantasy scenes are the highlight and its cute, charming family adventure anime film with alot of heart/endearment, runs on kind of too long and could have had more of a story though.

Vonter
It says something in a year of great videogames when I can really recommend a Sonic game. Sonic Mania is a good platformer, with great control, charming visuals, great music and level design that feels more readable than the last games I've played in this series.

AidanAK47
@Mario, Pres and delinquent girl is my favourite but I still hope the Kuudere couple shows up. This week was hilarious with the little sister trying to get back at her brother's girlfriend only for the girlfriend to know it was her immediately and start screwing around.

SuperMario
Mine is Takurou - Chizuru (the red hair boy and orange hair girl in this week's last segment. Maybe because I have a penchant for weird girl :/

SuperMario
@Kaiser: and I will give you a review on... new spiderman movie or whatever. My friend drags me to watch it with her tonight, and I haven't watched any spiderman installment since the one in 2007. Well, whatever...

Kaiser-Eoghan
@Mario: I will review Hirune-hime tomorrow night hopefully. Also I have seen all his ghost in the shell work, Moribito and Eden of the east but never Cyborg 009 .

K-Off
@Kaiser Insurance by itself won't hold you back at all, but getting a new car certainly will. The down payment alone will set you back a couple grand and you likely won't pay off the car for about 2-4 years.

K-Off
@Aidan Jeez, my condolences. @Kaiser Auto insurance covers most accidents and the rates won't go up so long as it's not your fault and you have evidence to prove it (like a dashcam).

Kaiser-Eoghan
Financially will it particularly hold you back on things like rent, etcetera?

Kaiser-Eoghan
But in all seriousness, that is one of the big reasons I haven't learned to drive, fear of that kind of thing happening, actually I think that might put me off driving if it happened to me.

Kaiser-Eoghan
The car incident is an obvious assassination attempt and conspiracy . Easily avoidable by investing in transport by Dragon .

AidanAK47
@K-Off, Lightly hit the side of a Van coming out of T junction. Left light smashed,front bumper and bonnet damaged. Gotta pay for that and the vans side door.

SuperMario
@Aidan: you should blame your car because it's new and shiny it's more accident prone than others. Did you mention your car is red??

AidanAK47
Man isn't it great having a new car. It's also great when you crash your new car and now have to pay hefty repair fees. Fantastic. No injuries or anything but it's going to be a pain to repair.

SuperMario
Princess Principal write-up will have to wait this time tomorrow guys. Sorry for those who wait but nothing can stand a chance against my madness for Monogatari now

Kaiser-Eoghan
I still have a bunch of old anime vhs tapes in my attic yes, would take forever to list though.

movies4life
You have still VHS tapes as well in your anime collection ? (me 40)

Kaiser-Eoghan
Hard to believe I've been at this anime/manga thing since I was 11 and am now in my 30s.

SuperMario
@Boukensha: for this site specifically most of us are like you. On and off with anime; burnt out, move on with life and back again... this why I believe the readers who read this site are slightly older than your average anime audience there.

OldManBoukensha
I think I'll call myself OldManBoukensha. Hope the name sticks (this is the anonyperson)

OldManBoukensha
Thanks for the recommendations @SuperMario and @Kaiser-Eoghan san! Sometimes feels surreal how time has flown, started watching anime and discovered psgels in uni... fast forward 12 years and I hit 30 this year. lots of great memories, eagerly waiting for blog posts for favourite animes like mushishi, seirei no moribito, FMA. ah good times. Thank you for taking the baton and keeping it lively :)

SuperMario
... and it's never too late to set up your permanent username now :)

SuperMario
@Anon1329673: if you had to pick up 1 show this season, then yes Made in Abyss. I'd also recommend Princess Principal as well. For slice of life office, Shirobako? There's a show running this season from the creators of Shirobako, not neccessary set in an office place but they are about adult working as well; the name is Sakura Quest

Lenlo
So naturally, Reflection and Ranbu will be delayed tomorrow because of a move. Last for abit. I promise. Hectic time :P

SuperMario
alright, 18if down. Now's the time that I've been looking for this season. Go watch Owari nowwww

AidanAK47
Yep, the author laid out how he wanted it to end before he died. Can't say how the new guy did as the English translation of the novels has not caught up that far.

Kaiser-Eoghan
@Aidan: These were presumably written from notes left behind by the author? Is there a disconnect in quality between the non-original author novels and the ones he wrote?

AidanAK47
Also the Familiar of Zero novels are better than the anime. Now, not shakespeare but the anime did not really adapt them well. The novels took the plot a little more seriously while the anime went full slapstick with it.

AidanAK47
@Kaiser, I was talking about the novels, not the anime. Someone jumped in to write the last two novels.

Kaiser-Eoghan
Of course things have changed, its been so many years since I saw the initial seasons, I couldn't tell if I'd still care.

Kaiser-Eoghan
Didn't really work in familiar of zeros case though , third and fourth seasons were a decline.

Kaiser-Eoghan
A famous example was Itazura na kiss, author died from having stuff collapse on her , anime finished the story.

AidanAK47
@Anon, Likely not now that the author is dead. There are some occasions where people jump in to complete the work like Familer of Zero but in most cases it is just left unfinished.

AidanAK47
@Movies, Watched about ten episodes and then just never got back to it. I thought it was alright.@Amagi, Indeed. Hopefully they won't be around that much.

Kaiser-Eoghan
...I think one of the two working on highschool of the deads manga died/

SuperMario
@anon1327403: funny that you mentioned Highschool of the Dead because I'm planning to watch that one real soon. But to answer your question, as far as I am aware of, no, there isn't any announcement regarding the new adaptation.

Anonymous1327403
Does anyone know if High School of the Dead will ever be picked up by another person

Kaiser-Eoghan
I'm still watching stuff though, just finished the Cobra ovas last night, fun camp in the flash gordon/Barbarella vein, though it misses the soundtrack from the old 80s version.

Kaiser-Eoghan
I love a good Bond type spy thingnow and then but I'd LOVE to see a more serious anime take on the genre.

Kaiser-Eoghan
If kakegurui is enjoyable in the same way a trash-exploitation film is I could see myself watching .

Kaiser-Eoghan
Count me in for those who weren't happy with the progress of abyss' manga.

Kaiser-Eoghan
Then again my gaming days are long long in the past for the most part. The humour in gamers would just turn me off now, I've lost interested in most anime comedy.

Kaiser-Eoghan
I was aware of ANN being down, for the most part I really only skimmed their articles. I wish sega would just put Sonic down, its been on decline for so long.

SuperMario
@KTravlos: have fun with whatever you doing in the next 10 days mates. And if you have time, sample Princess Principal as well

KTravlos
I will be off the net the next 10 days, so sorry if I do not answer any replies etc. Have a good time all! See you later.

KTravlos
took the hiatus of my shows as a chance to sample the current season. Saw first episodes of Kakeguiri, Abyss, and Altair. Kakeguiri and Abyss really did have great first episodes, that grab you. Altair was a bit too old-fashioned, but I will probably continue watching it. Kakeguiri had excellent OP and ED, while Abyss had in general great music. And yeah, you guys were not kidding about beauty

SuperMario
And I still enjoy Gamers thoroughly. Not sure if it can keep up with the misunderstanding mess about relationships from the main cast but so far the show is hilarious

KTravlos
so now I know about why ANN did not work. @Holystockings yes, again I should detest it for many things it has, but they pulled it off and I like it.

Holystockings
I'll be honest here. I would have never guessed that Kakegurui would have been this good.

Vonter
@AidanAK47 This year there have been a lot of good games. Too many to play seriously. I do wonder how deliberations would be since more than scores or genres I don't feel a all out winner, more than different games excelling at different things.

Lenlo
So finally finished Kado, and I have to say I am not a fan of the shark jump.

AidanAK47
Also too many games coming this month. SubaHibi, Sonic Mania and Ys Seven. Not to mention cold steel now out. I still need to get blood orange complete and in comes a small, medium and two extra large time sinks.

AidanAK47
And in other news Voltorn season three is out but only seven episodes long. With another fourth season coming in October which is 6 episodes long. I wonder why Netflix are spilting up seasons like this?

AidanAK47
So, not sure if anyone has heard this or not but the Anime News Network site has been hacked. Hence why you can no longer access it.

Kaiser-Eoghan
@Mario: blancanieves was modern silent take on snow white, a different spin on the story.

SuperMario
It's like this: The Artist gets the "look" of silent film, but Guy Maddin's works get the "feel" of it

Kaiser-Eoghan
I can remember Mitchum was in an underated remake of the big sleep......though you could really tell even just from listening to him speak he was a pothead.

SuperMario
@Kaiser: I agree with you that Guy Maddin's works are more of a representative of neo-silent than the Artist (the Artist is just so... wide-appealing for my taste. It tries to please everyone). I always feel that Maddin is born in a wrong era. Had he born in the silent era he'd definately be a legend.

SuperMario
@Kaiser: I don't blame the audience from the 50s who didn't get the film. I didn't quite get it the first time either but the film just keep growing on me. I remembet Robert Mitchum in his noir detective role as well, most notably his role in Out of the Past. The lead girl in that movie has a very typical femme fatale look as well, which mean she's gorgeous

Kaiser-Eoghan
@Mario: I've been looking into Guy Maddin's work, its occasionally funny in an absurdist way and alot of the appeal comes from how strange his films are, while I think that film the artist was a good take on silent films, Maddins tributes to silent film are far more successful.

Kaiser-Eoghan
@Mario: People weren't ready for night of the hunter in the 50s, one of those baffling situations that it flopped when originally released, frustratingly that director never got to work again. For me I think that was one of Robert Mitchum's best roles, along with his one in Cape fear.

SuperMario
I watched No at the time of its release. Good watch although I don't remember much of it now. Not only they have the same actors as Neruda, those films are directed from the same director. This fude also directed Jackie last year that star Nayalie Portman as the First Lady

Kaiser-Eoghan
@Movies: The other Chinese anime attempts aren't any better I hear.

movies4life
Watch in a day the whole season of Gin no Guardian. Is have so much potential in story and animation but somehow something missing. maybe is just for growing up Kids

AidanAK47
@Anon, Like SAO season 2 then. Myself and a friend tried to watch that for the sole reason of taking the piss out of it. Ended up not finishing it because there wasn't anything to take the piss out of because barely anything happened each episode and it was so boring that we couldn't take it anymore.

KTravlos
I have seen "The Secret in their Eyes". A good film. I do recommend "Neruda", and the film "No" which as some of the same actors.

Anonymous1324414
People thought they were 'ironically' watching a bad movie until they realized the movie's so bad it can't even be enjoyed on an ironic level.

AidanAK47
I am not surprised that the Emoji movie is bad. But I am quite astonished that people seem to be surprised that it's bad.

Kaiser-Eoghan
Gah, I would hate that, having to put up with a kid in cinemas, having to see , having to financially benefit some anti-art film like that.

Kaiser-Eoghan
I enjoy the surrealism that is present in some Latin filmaking. As for secret in their eyes, its got that great stadium scene and twist later on, though some of the exchanges between actors/characters seemed awkward, overall while I liked it, it felt like an extended tv episode.

SuperMario
I'm also looking forwards to listen to their new OPs. Mnogatari's soundtrack is the only anime soundtrack that I bought a physical CD. Still listen to all those songs quite frequently

SuperMario
So Owarimonogatari will air in 2 days. I honestly don''t know how I should review it (by episode? by each arc? by day? Rating or not?) but dang I'm gonna review it.

SuperMario
You can try another Latin American film, The Secret in Their Eyes (not the REMAKE one). There was a 10 minutes unbroken (CGI) shot that follow the leads in the football stadium to look for their suspect. Quite impressive

SuperMario
@KTravlos: I missed my chance to watch Neruda when it was screening in my local cinema; but I've heard good things about the film. People said it's an unconventional but effective biopic film. The more I watch Latin American cinema, the more I feel the unique charm from the area that I don't feel anywhere else.

Masky
Still, weird manga because its kind of increasingly obvious that the people behind Nana are the bad guys .-. They are just overly sinister.

Masky
So skipped third chapter and just read fourth chapter of Talentless Nana. Ok, seems like it might have more of hook now? Villain protagonist vs hero antagonist?(who also can't be killed off first because they are immortal, so she would need to figure out how to deal with him first)

Vonter
I'm also as of now noticing this Isekai trend. And to be honest the most disappointing aspect for me, is how formulaic the worlds are. This is also a complain in RPGs. But I don't get how like 7 or more of this, feels like the setting could be the same world. I don't know, I just think there should be ways to make each feel more unique.

Vonter
I went to Chicago and bought a Switch and lots of manga. I was happy with my choices. Murcielago is a violent buddy cop. Delicious Dungeon is a creative take on a dungeon crawler setting and funny. The 7th garden is a well composed manga, if anything a good example for sequential art reference. I also read several chapters of Mushoku Tensei, which is Isekai but heck it did made me care.

AidanAK47
It's like the difference between reading Konosuba and watching Konosuba. I read the novels up to date and while it's fine it's like reading the script to a comedy skit. It's not nearly as entertaining as seeing it in action. The animation and actors just added so much more to it.

AidanAK47
@Puran, I actually agree with you on that. I read the manga before watching the anime and couldn't really get into it. However I felt that things would change when seeing it animated and indeed it did. Currently I would place the anime adaption above it's source material.

In other news, I read the manga for Made in Abyss and I didn't really like it...? Felt kinda boring and soulless? While the anime seemed to have some sort of magic and wonder. It kinda spoiled my enjoyment of the Anime. I think I'll drop it for a while and marathon it later to let the bad taste from my mouth subside.

Anonymous1320940
my girlfriend is coming back home and I am so looking forward to getting my cock sucked again. Sex starved since Wednesday

Kaiser-Eoghan
@K-off: Genuinely missed Tsugumi when her character got the axe.

AidanAK47
Getting the made in abyss post up tonight but it looks like the other two are going to have to wait. Kakegurui's sixth episode will be airing this week and Fate's episode won't be subbed until friday. I will see if I can get secondhand subs to do a writeup but I would prefer to watch it with UTW subs.

K-Off
The spin-offs are actually a good read because it's essentially similar to the opening few chapters of the main story.

Kaiser-Eoghan
Ah seoul station, that director (or at least the animator) has done some other animated films that I've yet to get round to.

Kaiser-Eoghan
@K-off: Maybe a sequel or more spinoffs planned? I've not read any of the spinoff come to think of it.

K-Off
The film was interesting, but I remember I watched it after Train to Busan and its animated prequel so I found it lacking in comparison.

K-Off
I'll just say that the manga does not end climatically nor in any interesting way. It ends up focusing on a new set of characters near the end (what kind of writer thinks that's a good idea?) and rushes the MC's story.

Kaiser-Eoghan
The film adaptation of I am a hero is better than it has any right to be.

Lenlo
Apologies, The Reflection for this week should be up tomorrow. Rather busy is all because I have a 4 month long project presentation tomorrow.

AidanAK47
@K-Off, I think there may be about three of them in my county. I tried a Hybrid but it just didn't do anything for me. If it was out yet and if I was rich I would buy a Faraday FFzero1.

K-Off
@Aidan Right, forgot about that. I guess it really would be a problem out in the sticks, that's what hybrids are for I suppose. I don't know about urban areas in Ireland, but in NYC and LA electric charging stations are everywhere.

AidanAK47
@K-Off, I wanted to buy an electric car originally but was talked out of it because we don't have gas stations with chargers for one.@Supermario, Ho boy. I often joke about fan-service series being porn but that show quite literally is porn. The story isn't deep either as it's omnibus format so the story resets every four episodes or so.

SuperMario
I am in the mood today so I finally checking out that controversial Yosuga no Sora - to see if it has any deeper, more intimate message or it's just a harem setting for soft-incest-porn that despise everyone. Wish me luck guys

K-Off
Yeah, that's a shame. But I think it's bound to happen, now that shot put got one.

Kaiser-Eoghan
I think I would find it quite difficult to find a storyline that made mathematics enjoyable. Not a numbers guy, more on the arty side.

Anonymous1312485
I don't think I know anything Japanese young people hate more than math.

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